


Incandescence

by Nebulochaotic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety, Broken Harry, Depression, M/M, Manipulative Dumbledore, Multi, alive dumbledore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-02-24 10:03:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13211442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulochaotic/pseuds/Nebulochaotic
Summary: [DISCONTINUED]Harry doesn't want to die, but he is going to.Harry walks to his death at the final battle, but things don't work out as expected.Voldemort is angry and disappointed





	1. Chapter 1

The sky was lit up by different colors as spells were thrown at enemies; stunners and unforgivables, curses and hexes. Everyone was seemingly duelling someone, fighting for their lives, for what they believed. All but one, single person walking silently through the forbidden forest, towards his death. The noise of the battle didn’t penetrate through his thoughts as he made his way slowly towards the clearing where he would take his final breath. He barely even noticed anything at the moment.

 

Harry didn’t want to die, but he was going to. Because that was what he had to do. Dumbledore had told him as much. He had to die, so that everyone else could live. How was that fair at all? After everything he had done for them, for everyone. After everything he had to endure. Their hero-worship, their hate and disgust. Their fickleness when it came to him. Yet he of all people had to give up his life, for people who had called him names, for people who had lied to him, manipulated him and forced his hand. All because of a prophecy, because of a horcrux residing in his head.

 

Dumbledore had known about it for years. About the prophecy, about the horcrux, about Voldemort’s measures to achieve immortality. And not once had he been forthcoming with the information, instead choosing to keep Harry in the dark about it. Raising him to be a sacrificial lamb at the right moment. Instead of killing him off when he was too young to understand, before he lost everyone he held dear. He had to go willingly to his death, Dumbledore had said. Laying in on thickly that it was for the greater good, for the survival of all his friends, and the wizarding world.

 

Harry didn’t want to die, but he was going to. Because it was expected of him, because he was told to. He hadn’t wanted to listen to that old manipulative bastard. He had thrown a fit right there in his office when Dumbledore had told him what he had to do. Ron and Hermione not saying anything. Harry had asked him, asked them, again and again;  _ why? Why me? Haven’t I done enough?  _ Apparently he hadn’t. They wanted more from him, more than he was willing to give them.

 

The raven haired young man shook his head, trying to clear it from the thoughts of the people he once saw as his best friends, the ones he thought would always have his back as he had theirs. They had wanted him to walk to his death. They wanted him to die. Harry swallowed around the hard lump that was forming in his throat, grinding his teeth together in an effort not to let his emotions rule him. He needed to do this. It was what he was raised for. To wander to his own demise at the final battle.

\--

 

It was the low and chilling laughter that finally made him stop, it sent shivers down his spine, but it was Hagrid’s voice who made him flinch. Slowly Harry raised his green eyes to look at the people gathered in the clearing. Voldemort was there, of course he was, and so was a few of his chosen death eaters along with Hagrid who was forced down on his knees at wand point.. Unconsciously he gripped his wand tighter, even though he wasn’t planning on using it. It was unnecessary to defend himself after all. He had come to die. What point was there in even trying to defend oneself then?

 

“Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived,” Voldemort spoke quietly, but his voice carried like a whispered threat around the dark clearing. Harry closed his eyes, clenching his jaws as hard as he could. He didn’t wanna die. He wanted to survive. He wanted to live. White noise was ringing in his ears, drowning out everything else. Barely noticeable tremors started to wreck through his body and he dropped his wand to the ground. With his eyes closed he couldn’t see the shocked and curious expressions of the Death eaters and his sworn nemesis.

 

“You have come to die” It was a statement and not a question. Harry fisted his hands at his side in an attempt to rein in his emotions, wishing that Voldemort would just get on with it and kill him, preferably painlessly with the killing curse. When the seconds started to move on towards minutes Harry couldn’t hold it in anymore and a sob escaped him. To the immense amusement of one Bellatrix Lestrange who cackled at the sound. He couldn’t help it though, as tears started to stream their way down his cheeks, dripping from his chin. He refused to open his eyes though, refused to see their amusement, but he could hear it. The low laughter, the entertained snickers and their sadistic glee over the broken boy in front of them.

 

“You’re not even going to try and defend yourself?” There was curiosity in the question, and something that Harry couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe something like disappointment if he had to guess. Unwittingly he hunched in on himself, while he shook his head. A low growl was the only answer Harry got to that, the only warning he had before he was thrown off his feet by a spell. He landed roughly on the ground, but the only indication of hurt was the minimal grimace of pain that passed his face. It was gone a moment later.

 

“Crucio” the curse was thrown at him in a harsh whisper, but the effect was still the same. A choked scream tore itself from his throat as he started to trash on the ground as the curse ignited every single one of his nerve ends, setting fire to his blood. It was lifted to give him a semblance of peace for a second or two before it was recast. Again and again.

 

Harry didn’t know how many times he was put under the curse, the only thing he registered was the taste of blood in his mouth from biting through his tongue. He couldn’t hear Hagrid’s pleading shouts, or the leering words from the death eaters.

 

“Just kill me already” he forced out between gritted teeth at the next short paus. “Please”. Voldemort halted in his movement, mid-cast of the torture curse and stared. This wasn’t the Harry he knew and hated with his very being. This wasn’t the boy-who-lived-to-make-his-life-difficult, this was just a broken boy on the ground pleading for his own death. How disappointing. 

 

“You really want to die that much?” The dark lord sneered at the teenager sobbing on the ground. Yet again his only answer was a quick nod and a whimper. Nothing at all like the boy he had met at the cemetery, nothing at all like the boy he had face at the ministry.  


 

“Please, just kill me. I’ve nothing to live for anyway.” Harry clenched his eyes tightly shut, hoping for the final blow, for Voldemort to end his life, to take away his suffering, as his body spasms at the after affects of the cruciatus curse. No, Harry Potter didn’t want to die, but he didn’t want to live either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is my first ever Fanfiction, and I kinda just ended up winging it in the middle of the night for no reason what so ever??? Anyway tell me what you think.  
> And yeah sorry for the shortness of it.
> 
>  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is finally the next chapter of this story. I'm sorry for taking so long, but you know. Real life and all that.  
> There might be some grammar problems and mispellings, but hopefully they aren't too bothersome.

It was quiet. Almost too quiet, if there now was such a thing as that. An unnatural silence that wrapped around the forest like a cloak. It seemed like even the creatures living in the Forbidden Forest had run off somewhere, or maybe they were holding their breaths: waiting. Waiting for something to happen, for the next thing to come. Even the Death Eaters standing around the edge of the clearing were, surprisingly, quiet.

 

The Dark Lord stared at the boy after his quiet admission, wand pointed at the raven haired teens face. Tears tracking their way down sunken in cheeks in a shade so pale it was almost as abnormal as Voldemort's own pallid skin tone.

 

What had happened to the boy, for him to want to die like this? There was the threat to every single life of his friends, but that had never seemed to stop him before. It had never stopped him from fighting any other time. So what had changed?

 

Voldemort found himself curious. Disappointed, but curious. It was all wrong. The boy was supposed to fight him. He should have happily killed the boy as soon as he could, should have ensured his victory right away, yet he didn't. Winning like this wouldn’t feel much like winning at all. The Dark Lord sneered, again.

 

The Death Eaters were starting to get restless, he could see them in his periphery. He could hear them shuffling and mumbling. Bellatrix were practically twitching with the want and need to throw herself at the boy, to kill him herself. Wanting to wrap her nasty little hands around his throat and suffocate him with her bare hands. Even if that was such a vulgar and muggle thing to do.

 

Harry seemed to curl in more and more on himself while he waited. Like he could disappear in on himself. Body wracking with quiet sobs he tried to hide. It was all in vain. Voldemort saw it all. Observed it with a perverse interest. It was a sweet torture in on itself, wasn’t it? Making the Potter boy wait for his own end, on his knees in a clearing filled with people who couldn’t be more happy about his predicament. 

 

“Is that so?” The boy flinched. Probably surprised by the sudden answer. Green eyes peeking open to see what was taking so long. Another short, quick nod. Voldemort took the few steps separating them, pressing his wand against the hollow of the boys throat. He wanted to know. He wanted to know why the boy said that he had nothing to live for. Of course he had. As far as he knew his Death Eaters had yet to kill his precious little friends, had yet to take over the school.

 

Red eyes met green. He wanted to know. A quivering breath from the boy who was chewing on his own bleeding lip. He  _ wanted _ to know. And he was going to find out.

 

“Legilimens” He didn’t need to utter the words, not really, but the widening of those emerald eyes made it all worth it. He dove into the mind of the boy-who-lived, watched the flashes of his childhood pass. Watched his school years fly by in snapshots. All the while said boy tried, in vain, to push him out of his mind. Voldemort was far too strong for him though, to accomplished in the arts of legilimency and occlumency to be chased of by the likes of a schoolboy. 

 

And there it was. The explanation. The reason for the boy-who-lived to act like his world just shattered around him. Because it had. His world had turned upside-down.

 

_ “You need to let Voldemort kill you, my boy”  _ He watched the old fool say.  _ “You need to die, so everyone else can live. It’s for the greater good”  _

 

Voldemort wanted to scoff. Wanted to laugh at the old mans foolish ideas. Like killing the boy would stop him. He would take over the wizarding world of britain. He would conquer them all. He watched the boy protest, watch him try to reason with the headmaster who wouldn’t budge. Watched as his friends turned on him: wanting him to die. Voldemort was almost sadistically gleeful over how the boys friends tore into him with surprising viciousness. Until:  _ “You’re the last horcrux, my boy.” _

 

Voldemort ripped from the memory with rage, furiously digging through the boys mind, ignoring his screams from the pain, until he found what he was looking for. That small sliver of his own soul embedded in Harry Potters head. Just behind his blasted lightning bolt scar.

 

The Dark Lord tore from his mind with a ferocious snarl. Angry at himself for not noticing it sooner. For not realizing it sooner. The boy was a parselmouth for Merlin's sake. He should have known! Whipping around his blood-red angry eyes locked on the only other person who could have known it. Would have known it. Severus Snape. His little traitor it seemed.

 

“Did you know?!” he demanded from the potions master, whos black eyes had been locked on the twitching, sobbing boy on the ground until he turned towards him.  He had joined the clearing soon after the sole survivor of the killing curse had. Half hiding in the shadows behind the sacrificial lamb of the light. 

 

“Know what, my lord?” There was a measured calmness to the question. He was awarded with a crucio for his  impertinence. No scream left the potion master turned spy, but he was shaking when he rose from the ground he had fallen to.

 

“About what’s in the boys head. Did you know about the thing hiding in his scar?” The dark lord gestured sharply towards the small, shaking body right beside him. “And what did you call his homelife? Pampered? Spoiled?” 

 

The accused professor seemed bewildered. As bewildered Severus Snape now could seem. Without a warning, not having the time or patience to be lied to, Voldemort tore into his mind too, for once slipping by all the walls and defenses the potion master always seemed to have up. He was allowed in. To see the truth of how much the other had betrayed him. 

 

“Severus, Severus, Severus” the Dark Lord whispered, but his voice seemed to carry. Bellatrix cackled, glad that the spy finally seemed to get what was coming for him.

 

“Vowed to keep the boy safe. Tell me Severus, what side are you on?” He knew the answer, but he wanted the greasy haired man to tell him, himself.

 

The potion master seemed to hesitate for just one second, eyes flickering towards the sobbing boy on the ground.

 

“His, my lord. Wherever that might be.”

 

“I knew it, my lord! I always said he was a dirty spy! That we couldn’t trust him!” she shouted in glee.

 

“Silence!” Voldemort slashed his wand towards the crazed woman, making her drop to the ground screaming by the force of the torture curse ripping through her body like molten lava for a few long seconds before her master turned back towards the spy.

 

\----

 

It felt like someone had taken a hammer to his head, it was pulsating with pain that didn’t seem to fade no matter how hard he tried to press his fingers into his skull. Harry moaned in pain, tears running over his too pale cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. He was lying on his side on the ground, face pressed into the moss.

 

Maybe if he let go. Then maybe he would just stop breathing, stop hurting. Voldemorts vicious attack on his mind left him shaking on the ground. He barely knew what was up and down. Barely felt the terrain beneath him. It was all just pain. Pain, pain, pain.

 

He could hear them talking, and he knew they were talking about him, but he couldn’t make sense of the words. It was like there was a thick slab of glass between them, distorting the words until they were just sounds. 

 

How long had he been here now? In the clearing, in front of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. How long since his friends turned on him, and since Dumbledore confessed to raising him as a pig for slaughter? Hours? Minutes? Harry didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. He just wanted the pain to end. Just wanted the pain to go away.

 

A hand landed on his shoulder and he violently flinched away from the appendage, only to have it grab him again with a bruising force. His green eyes swiveled up towards the person touching him: wide, frightful. Why hadn’t they killed him yet? Were they toying with him? That must be it? Right?

 

Green eyes met red. He wanted to know. Why hadn’t Voldemort cast the killing curse on him yet? Oh, right. He had seen. He had to know about the horcrux now. So this was it then? This was the end? Voldemort wouldn’t kill him. It would be like killing himself. He had failed. A sob tore from the broken boys throat, hoarse, painful. Like sandpaper against stone. 

 

They were alone now. Everyone else seemed to have left. It was just the two of them. It was all lost. The war was lost.

 

Harry began to struggle in the Dark Lords grasp, half-heartedly, weakly.

 

“Shh, shhh” The Darkest Lord of all times were shuss:ing him, holding his hands in his own large, scaley ones. 

 

“Why are you fighting now?” he sounded experated, disappointed, amused. How he could sound all that at the same time, Harry didn’t know. He didn’t much care to find out either. “You’ve been hurt enough for today” 

 

Harry froze. Was Voldemort trying to soothe him? What was this? What had happened to the dark and ruthless snake that wanted him dead. Harry knew the chances of Voldemort killing him now were pretty low, but he was a fool to believe the Dark Lord wouldn’t keep on hurting him. He only needed him alive after all, not happy.

 

“Come on, precious one, we are going home. My Death Eaters can handle the rest” 

 

A murmured spell later and Harry's world fell into darkness.


End file.
